Clarion

Planning

Partner and Head of Planning.

Considered by clients to be a first-rate planning lawyer with strong planning legal skills coupled with an ability to make things happen, Carolyn has over 30 years’ experience in planning and related areas of law. Carolyn has an excellent reputation for being thorough, pragmatic and personable. Carolyn takes pride in her ability to anchor and co-ordinate consultant teams but also to act as an effective team member.

Carolyn has particular expertise in advising on large or challenging sites with legal planning or highway complexities and she brings experienced, detailed involvement in and practical knowledge of the entire development process. Clients describe her as persistent in trouble-shooting and following a job through, coupled with focused attention to detail, effective strategic thinking and sensitive stakeholder management. She has worked across the country with a number of prominent developer and infrastructure clients on major brownfield and greenfield projects, including residential, commercial, education, leisure and retail, rail, waste and waste water, energy, minerals and aggregates-related work.

Her experience spans projects on key heritage sites and protected wildlife areas as well as those with rights of way and highway issues. She advises on contentious judicial review and enforcement matters as well as dealing with complex planning and highway legal agreements.

As an active member of the wider community, Carolyn is Chair of the Board of Leeds Conservatoire, a member of the Board of Luminate Education Group and a trustee of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Carolyn has been appointed since 1999 as a member of independent remuneration panels for local authorities in Leeds and West Yorkshire, was lay chair of the Standards Committee of the West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority and is now the Independent Person for the West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

She is co-founder of Leeds Fashion Works and Yorkshire Textiles, two initiatives that since 2009 have successfully catalysed the highlighting of the region's fashion and textiles industries on the international stage for innovation and economic growth. She has regularly promoted and fostered schemes for learning and skills training for local people when opportunities arise with clients or other contacts.